The Oscars are a few days away and the debates continue about which film is the “Best Picture.” After seeing a fair share of them-Get Out, The Shape of Water and Dunkirk-I can finally say where my vote will go: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Three Billboards is a drama film cut straight from Southern Gothic tradition set in the fictional titular Podunk town. Ebbing, Missouri, is the background of some incredible atrocities, the first of which is the rape and murder of “Angela Hayes,” a case gone unsolved and neglected. In response, Angela’s mother, “Mildred,” pays to put up three billboards outside the city that read a public and aggressive cry for justice, one that begins to upset the townspeople.
With a film that deals with hot-button issues like sexual assault and police brutality in a modern context, it would be easy for a story like this to come off as preachy, demonizing or overly politicized. But Three Billboards comes nowhere near these pitfalls. Instead all of the action in the movie revolves around empathy.
Initially the viewer sympathizes with Mildred more than any other character. She’s a grieving and morally outraged mother who, despite her cry for justice, is more moved by her own guilt than any other element. On the opposing side, “Jason Dixon,” an angry and violent police officer, is the least sympathetic. Known for torturing minorities, he’s an unfeeling and ignorant loose cannon who regularly abuses his power to assault citizens almost at random.
But, the longer the movie goes on, the more similar Mildred and Dixon seem, driven by similar impulses and carrying similar burdens. Mildred’s qualities begin to appear more grotesque, and Dixon comes through with some surprising shows of heroism. By the end of the film, the two almost start to feel like the same person, and ultimately the film ends with the two almost in perfect harmony.
One of Three Billboards’s greatest strengths, something rare of southern stories, is the modernity of it. The American South is often preoccupied with antiquity and past traditions, but the reactions and behaviors of the whole cast are distinctly realistic and modern. In this way, the film is a perfect snapshot of 21st-century perspectives, yet still pulls strongly from traditions that are more than a century old.
Southern Gothic storytelling always has been known for posing serious and complex questions of morality, and herein lies the beauty of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri-it does not offer any answers to the issues of assault, perspective or cruelty. It is a film preoccupied solely with asking questions, real and urgent questions, the questions of an entire generation, all done in a classic southern background.
Three Billboards film feels dark and enlightening, upsetting and fascinating, and it left me with the words of Friedrich Nietzsche in my mind: “Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.”
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